Synopsis

With the space program attempting to travel to Mars, 21st century scientists were tasked with warming up the planet so that humans could survive on its surface. They came up with an efficient and cost effective plan of sending cockroaches and mold to the surface so that the mold would absorb the sunlight and the insect corpses would serve as a food source for the mold.

It is now the year 2577 and the first manned ship to Mars has landed on the planet and the six crew members are ready for their mission. But what they find are giant mutated humanoid cockroaches with incredible physical strength. The crew members are easily wiped out, but not before sending a transmission back to Earth. Now, humanity will send elite warriors to exterminate the mutated bugs and claim back Mars.

Background

Terra Formars has been published in English by VIZ Media under the VIZ Signature imprint since July 15, 2014. It has also been published in Spanish by Ivrea since December 2013 and in Brazil by Jbc since July 2015.

A live-action film of the series is in development and will be directed by Takashi Miike.

Terra Formars is a halfway decent Gantz knockoff that is interlaced with Japanese nationalism and general xenophobia as rabid as it is unsubtle, pushed to such a ridiculous extent that it's not even offensive anymore. Okay, it can get a bit offensive. Most of the time it's just eye-roll-worthy though. I won't even get into it...

The concept of Terra Formars is that cockroaches were used in the terraformation of Mars (bad-title origin hint) and within five hundred years they have evolved into savage and violent black humanoids who wear no clothes and use primitive weapons like some kind of African
tribesmen. They sometimes are referred to as "those black shitstains," and they have nappy hair plus exaggeratedly broad facial features, but hey guys, hey, no racial. Squads of good bug people are sent to exterminate these filthy bad bug people once and for all. What's that? You think this premise sounds like that of a comedy? Mayhaps that of an old "so bad it's good" campy sci fi horror flick? Preposterous. Terra Formars is serious business, guys. Real serious. Or at the very least, it completely ignores the fact that it is fundamentally absurd in its scientific inaccuracy and physical impossibilities, squandering any potential it ever had along the way, and it then uselessly attempts to force the audience to take it seriously anyways. The plot would be better if the author didn't try to explain anything scientifically, but he unfortunately seems to be under the delusion that he is an intelligent and distinguished evolutionary biologist, or at least that he has the first clue what he is talking about. Just in case you were wondering, he actually does not have a single clue what he is talking about. A simple "just because" or "aliens" explanation like in Gantz would have served the plot far better.

The characters are all cliché and none of them are significant in the slightest. Terra Formars attempts to create tension by killing the vast majority of the characters off, but this tactic is rendered entirely ineffective when the audience simply does not have any reason to give a flying fuck about those characters in the first place. The dynamics between these characters are consistently recycled and this, among other things having to do with the manga's general lack of variety, makes Terra Formars feel incredibly repetitive, a problem that its oft proclaimed spiritual predecessor, Gantz, only came close to suffering from in the very end, and that was for far more forgivable reasons.

The artwork is laughable, in a literal sense. Character designs are repetitive along with being anatomically inaccurate; female characters are only there to provide poorly drawn fanservice and ryona. That said, the real issue with the art is the cockroaches, the "scary" antagonists. The facts that the antagonists are all identical and all possess the same recycled faces and expressions could be partially overlooked were they not so ridiculous in appearance. I have a large album of pictures of them saved on my computer, because they are just that hilarious. This manga would be far superior in quality and infinitely enjoyable was it a slice of life about the cockroach people forming a club at school, drinking tea, running in the street with toast in their mouth, and perhaps even engaging in a steamy and moderately comedic romance with the cutest misunderstood bad boy in school. That concept would properly play to the, admitted few, strengths of the artwork, which clearly do not include terrifying imagery or fluid action. Unfortunately, we instead get stuck with a half-assed plot and pointless fanservice.

This manga is filled with psuedo-depth and characters (plus the irritating word of god narrator who also spiels on about nets and insects and pretentiously quotes barely-relevant scripture) who muse, redundantly and at great length, about the fascinating (except not actually) relationship between cockroaches and humans. You see guys, it is simply so genius and profound that you probably completely missed the complexity and intricacies of it; the roles of the two species have been reversed. We used to kill them just because, and now they kill us......just because!!!! Dun dun dun. Right? Get it? Got it? If this concept is too difficult for you to understand then, don't worry your pretty little head over it, the cast of flat and often identical characters will spell it out for you over and over again, in the same exact way every single time, of course. Sound deep? Sound interesting? Insightful, perhaps? No? Good, because it actually isn't.

Gantz may have had a bad ending, and you might want more, but, for the love of god almighty, do not be tricked for one moment into thinking that Terra Formars ever comes anywhere close to being as good as Gantz was in its prime. It lacks the self-awareness, quality art, satirical nature, characterization, immediate general appeal, pervasive camp, creativity, variety, and sense of humor that made Gantz good. All of that being said, even if the humorous nature of the manga was completely unintentional, and the antagonists were lame, they did offer a bit of entertainment. Terra Formars does have something about it that moderately entertained me and kept me reading despite, or maybe even because of, it being extraordinarily bad in an objective sense; just for that, I will go ahead and slap on two extra points like the generous and forgiving critic that I am. I give this manga four offensive racial underto- points, I meant to say points, out of ten. Read chapter one of Death Face if you want a more enjoyable, touching, and profound story about cockroaches.

Additional comments:
Germans do not name their kids "Adolf" anymore. Just saying. I have a distinct feeling that “Nazis” is all the author knows of Germany and “Communists” is all they know of Russia.

Also, I have a hard time believing that geopolitical relations have barely changed over the course of five hundred years. The battle between Capitalism and Communism in real life progressed more in a decade than it did in five hundred years in this manga. In fact, nothing about the atmosphere of the series is futuristic in the slightest; that kind of advancement in time will have massive changes in culture, not just technology. The “futuristic” technology does not go much past space travel and gene splicing either. This all shows a huge lack of imagination, depth, and vision.

Additionally, the mere assumption that an insect's strength and abilities in proportion to its size would be retained were they scaled up to humanoid dimensions ranks among the dumbest things I've ever heard. A bit smarter than "people die if they are killed" and "I will be hokage ninja master believe it," and yet a little bit dumber than "fun things are fun."

While I do'nt find this series to be a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination,i do'nt feel it entirely deserves it's bad rep either

story 6/10
the story itself is lame.....but creative nonetheless i do'nt recommend going in with too high of expectation cuz the premise on its own is'nt anything special but come on we've seen much worse...though i gotta admit they do push the bug philosophies a bit too far

The story itself is divided into 2 parts (3 if you include the 1-shot)

The Bugs 2 arc (Which covers the first volume) follows the bugs-2 ship and it's crew of rejects/outcasts that recieved the BUGS
surgery,where they're merged with insect DNA giving them the abilities of said insects going to Mars and coming in contact with the Roaches

The Annex-1 arc (which starts in the 2nd volume) follows another group being assigned to Mars this time to acquire Roach samples to find a cure for a virus that is believed to have originated from Mars

This time however,there seems to be a bunch of conspiracies and backstage politics as well as the unsolved mystery of the Roaches extreme evolution.Due to this,unlike the previous arc,the characters are'nt primarilly rejects and outcasts and consists of 3 types of people

-Outcasts who have nothing left and joined to earn money (or something along those lines)

-Characters whose loved ones were infected and ended up throwing everything away to assist in finding the cure

-Characters (sometimes military) who joined in service of their country to carry out certain missions

setting 5/10
it's setting is pretty weak,it's 500 years in the futureand not much has changed.though after a few chapters the setting shifts to mars anyway so theres that

art 9/10

The Art for the most part is well detailed and (for lack of a better word) cool as most of the chicks are hot (though not in the annoying Harem or moe kinda way),and all the guys mostly looks like muscular Body-builders (Not as exaggerated as something like Hokuto or Jojo,but along the lines of Guts from Berserk),though I'm rather hesitant to call it realistic.

The action scenes as well as the charater's many base organimsms well drawn and Detailed and let's not forget the explicit gore which depending on your views can be a plus or a minus

Also,Ignore anyone who rambles on to you about how racist the roaches supposedly are,as they are based off of the Homo-Erectus....Though admittedly the design can be hard to take seriously by some,while at the same time can also add to the weird/creepy factor

characters 6/10
well nothing we have'nt seen before but the writer tries hard to flesh out the personalies and some backstory before they meet their eventual gruesome demise some characters are pretty cliche.though they fortunately did'nt include the overused annoying stereotypes and unless you're someone who enjoys nitpicking stupidly i believe you'll find characters that u like even if they do use racial stereotypes

overall the characters are'nt anything special (except Adolph and Asimov.....those guys are awesome),but at the same time they're nothing too annoying or harmful (unless you take the supposed RACISM too seriously)

enjoyment 9/10
overall i really enjoyed it and would love to see it animated

i'd reccomend it if you're an action fan,as it mostly plays out likes some cheesy 80s anime or action flick and it's for the most part a fun series to read through

But if you for some Drama or complex plot,you'll really just end up dissapointed,so do'nt bother yourself

omg this manga. this manga is just... wow... talk about despair-inducing.

in a nutshell, the manga is about human-sized cockroaches who were sent to live on mars so that humans could colonize it in 500 years but the humans definitely didn't plan for them to be human-sized and... evolve to be intelligent as well. so, if you dislike cockroaches, insects, bugs, anything like that in general -- AND THE GORE -- well, i recommend that you should not read the manga because lord, there's so many references to bugs.

the suspense is so great and i love how the art is so action-oriented -- it just
keeps you reading and reading, and there's never a moment to stop for a rest (except in flashbacks) so it really highlights the action drama of this manga. since i'm reading just four volumes (about thirty-six chapters out so far), i really want the manga to delve more deeply into the story rather than just action.

there IS some story, mainly characterization and the secret behind the project. there are definitely women in this manga, which is great, but also not so great because they're usually the ones to be killed first (save for a few). however, there's not much character development that extend beyond just a few chapters because (almost) EVERYONE DIES. it's a type of human survival manga, except it's in an environment that is not the earth.

art is pretty good, extremely macho if i do say myself (maybe it's inspired by rob liefeld's artworks?) and the drawings of the cockroaches are very uniform yet unique, at least distinguished from the humans. character design is done really well.

tbqh i just want this manga to reveal the answers to the mysteries and to maybe slow down with a respite from the violence that's going on and I WANT EVERYONE TO HAVE HAPPY ENDINGS (except cockroaches) but most of all i just want this manga to go at least /somewhere/ that's not just fighting.